FBI names pipeline cyberattackers as company promises return
The operator of a major U.S. pipeline hit by a cyberattack says it hopes to have service mostly restored by the end of the week
May 11, 2021, 1:07 AM
6 min readShare to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this article
2:09
Colonial Pipeline says hackers demanding a ransom forced the company to shut down its 5,500 mile line which supplies 45% of fuel to the East Coast.
The Associated PressWASHINGTON -- Hit by a cyberattack, the operator of a major U.S. fuel pipeline said Monday it hopes to have services mostly restored by the end of the week as the FBI and administration officials identified the culprits as a gang of criminal hackers.
Colonial Pipeline, which delivers about 45% of the fuel consumed on the East Coast, halted operations last week after revealing a ransomware attack that it said had affected some of its systems. On Monday, U.S. officials sought to soothe concerns about price spikes or damage to the economy by stressing that the fuel supply had so far not been disrupted, and the company said it was working toward “substantially restoring operational service" by the weekend.
Nonetheless, the attack underscored the vulnerabilities of the nation's energy sector and other critical industries whose infrastructure is largely privately owned. Ransomware attacks are typically carried out by criminal hackers who scramble data, paralyzing victim networks, and demand large payments to decrypt it.
The Colonial attack was a potent reminder of the real-world implications of the burgeoning threat. Even as the Biden administration works to confront organized hacking campaigns sponsored by foreign governments, it must still contend with difficult-to-prevent attacks from cybercriminals.
“We need to invest to safeguard our critical infrastructure,” President Joe Biden said Monday. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the attack “tells you how utterly vulnerable we are” to cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure.
The attack came as the administration, still grappling with its response to massive breaches by Russia of federal agencies and private corporations, works on an executive order aimed at bolstering cybersecurity defenses. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has formed a ransomware task force designed for situations just like Colonial Pipeline, and the Energy Department on April 20 announced a 100-day initiative focused on protecting energy infrastructure from cyber threats. Similar actions are planned for other critical industries, such as water and natural gas.
Despite that, the challenge facing the government and the private sector remains immense.
In this case, the FBI publicly assigned blame Monday by saying the criminal syndicate whose ransomware was used in the attack is named DarkSide. The group's members are Russian speakers, and the syndicate’s malware is coded not to attack networks using Russian-language keyboards.
Anne Neuberger, the White House deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said at a briefing that the group has been on the FBI's radar for months. She said its business model is to demand ransom payments from victims and then split the proceeds with the ransomware developers, relying on what she said was a “new and very troubling variant.”
She declined to say if Colonial Pipeline had paid any ransom, and the company has not given any indication of that one way or the other. Though the FBI has historically discouraged victims from making payments for fear of promoting additional attacks, she acknowledged “the very difficult” situation that victims face and said the administration needs to look “thoughtfully at this area" of how best to deter ransomware.
"Given the rise in ransomware, that is one area we’re definitely looking at now to say, ‘What should be the government’s approach to ransomware actors and to ransoms overall?’”
Speaking later in the day at a conference on national security, Neuberger said the administration was committed to leveraging the government's massive buying power to ensure that software makers make their products less vulnerable to hackers.
“Security can't be an afterthought,” Neuberger said. “We don't buy a car and only then decide if we want to pay for seatbelts and airbags.”
The U.S. sanctioned the Kremlin last month for a hack of federal government agencies, known as the SolarWinds breach, that officials have linked to a Russian intelligence unit and characterized as an intelligence-gathering operation.